Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Today's 'Good News': Universities Get Saudi Millions

Great news today! Say, did everybody see the The New York Times? No? here's a link. A Saudi billionaire named Alwaleed bin Talal is giving millions of bucks to Georgetown and Harvard to establish Islamic studies programs!

"Harvard said it would create a universitywide program on Islamic studies, recruit new faculty members in the field, provide more support for graduate students and convert rare Islamic textual sources into digital formats to make them widely available," said the Times.

Zowie! Just what American universities need: More Islamic studies. And the name of Georgetown's new H.R.H. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding is really catchy. Hey, I'm psyched.

Might have been nice if the Times story didn't read like a press release, and if Islamic and Middle Eastern studies programs didn't become hotbeds of anti-Semitic propaganda -- as Campus Watch has documented. But hey, no reason to get into any of that stuff. Celebrate!